Britain's Somalis

[Thierry.]

Britain's Somalis

Settling in

Apr 4th 2007 | TOXTETH, LIVERPOOL

From The Economist print edition

Things are looking up for Britain's largest refugee community

 

GLOOM had descended on the Lodge Lane Somali Women's Group. The landlord was selling up and the small Liverpool charity did not have enough money to buy him out. Eviction was two weeks away. Then in walked Mariam Gulaid, the group's treasurer, with a bulging carrier bag. Inside was £14,100 in cash, raised in a whirlwind door-to-door collection from local Somalis—“all women,” she adds proudly. They are now on the way to buying the building.

Little is known of Britain's Somalis. Even counting them is hard: the 2001 census came up with a total of 43,691, but surveys since then suggest a number nearer 100,000. A century-old trickle of economic migrants became a flood of refugees in the 1980s, increasing in the late 1990s as tens of thousands fled violence. Somalis are now Britain's largest refugee group.

News tends to focus on the criminal exploits of their young men, who have acquired a fearsome reputation in some quarters. Reporters might learn more from the women: they are finding their feet, and helping friends and family find theirs.

“The men always say that women change when they come to England,” says Mrs Gulaid, who estimates that at least half the women who come through her door are single parents, either through death or, increasingly, divorce. For women, life in Britain means support from the state and, through this, independence from their husbands, she says.

Somali men seem to have a bumpier transition. Three-quarters have been to secondary school and one in ten has a degree, but language difficulties and unrecognised qualifications make unemployment the norm. Jill Rutter, a migration researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a think-tank, estimates that 65-70% are out of work. All-night sessions chewing qat also play their part (see article).

Down the road from Lodge Lane is the Merseyside Somali Community Association, a men's club. The brightly painted building is more a social venue than the action-oriented women's centre, which means that some men sneak into the women's group for advice. Osman Mohamed, its chairman, says hysteria about terrorism and suspicion directed at groups of black youths have given Somali men a reputation they do not deserve.

It is hard to sort fact from fiction, as crime figures are broken down only by broad racial categories. Somalis have made the news for a few ruthless crimes, including the murder of Sharon Beshenivsky, a rookie police officer, in 2005. But police say these villains are unrepresentative. Paul Hurst, a police constable who has patrolled Toxteth's Somali neighbourhood for 21 years (and visited Somalia on a police bursary), reckons a hard core of about 30 Somali youths are active in car crime and low-level drug-dealing in the city. Nonetheless, crime in Somali “Tocky”, as Toxteth is known, is lower than in neighbouring Picton and Wavertree, and light-touch policing has kept the peace. A repeat of the bloody Toxteth riots of 1981, when local Afro-Caribbeans clashed with police, is unthinkable, everyone agrees.

The outlook for young Somalis is brightening. Lack of English among newly arrived refugees has prevented progress at school: a 1999 study of students in Camden, north London, found that just 3% got five good GCSE qualifications, compared with 48% of all students (and 21% of refugee children). But as the number of asylum seekers has plummeted, achievement has soared: in 2005 24% of Somalis in Camden got their five good passes.

The fall in new arrivals has also damped down clan tensions, often blamed for causing fractures in the community. The Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees, a research body, counts at least 100 Somali organisations in London. Now, Liverpool's various bodies have overcome their differences to form an umbrella group, which is badgering the council for a joint community centre.

Image remains crucial, especially to elders who fear their community is unfairly smeared by impostors. Economic migrants from all over east Africa (some of them ethnic Somalis) claim to be from Somalia to boost their chances of gaining asylum: a favourite pastime of British Somalis is spotting the fakes. Hussain Osman, on trial for trying to blow up a London station in July 2005, is considered one of Britain's highest-profile Somalia-born refugees. He may be nothing of the sort. Italian police say he is Hamdi Issac, and Ethiopian

[Thierry.]

Qat

 

Something to chew over

 

Apr 4th 2007 | WEMBLEY, LONDON

 

From The Economist print edition

Trade is booming—and busting up families

THE discreet sign and dimly-lit staircase are not promising; nor is the silence that greets your correspondent when he interrupts a dozen Somali men to ask if this is the place to buy qat. But around the back, along a terrace and up another flight of stairs, sits a happy circle of youths, surrounded by discarded plant stems and beaming deliriously.

This is a mafresh, where people come to chew the leaves of Catha edulis, a celebrated east African shrub with narcotic properties similar to amphetamine. The leaves, known as qat, contain the stimulants cathinone and cathine, rendering them illegal in America, Canada and most of Europe.

Not so in Britain, which treats the plant as a harmless vegetable and allows its unrestricted import, export and sale. This is good news for the country's Somali, Yemeni and Ethiopian population, all regular chompers (a third of all Somali adults indulge). Demand from these communities has created a supply chain bringing bundles of stems from Africa to Britain, wrapped in banana leaves to keep them fresh. Their potency declines from the moment of harvest, so suppliers pull out all the stops to get their product into Britain's mafreshi within 24 hours.

The scale of the operation is breathtaking. A Home Office report in 2005 found that up to seven tonnes of qat is imported into Britain every day, mainly from Kenya. A 150-gram portion—a single dose—can be bought for £3, which suggests that the British market is worth some £51m a year for 17m hits.

Given that the target community numbers fewer than 200,000 (including a lot of children), this is a suspiciously large amount. The government reckons much of the stock is for export to markets where it is illegal—especially America, where a £3 British bundle can fetch ten times that much. Many would-be smugglers are intercepted there at customs, but Britain's soft line means they face no punishment when sent home.

Somali women in Britain have long backed a ban, sick of seeing their husbands buzz all night and snooze all day. A survey by Nacro, a crime-reduction charity, found 57% of Somali women thought qat chewers made bad fathers. “My brother does not hold on to jobs because he is up all night chewing,” was one typical response. In the same survey, two-thirds of users admitted they had trouble sleeping and half felt tired or depressed the morning after a session.

Despite this, the government last year approved a report recommending that the drug remain legal. Prohibition would raise its price, it was argued, causing organised criminals to move in and wrench the market from local businesses. In any case, the report noted reassuringly, the scourge was limited to Somalis and Yemenis, and there was “no evidence of qat use in the general population”. No need to worry then.

[Thierry.]

Looks like we can learn a lot from the ladies in Liverpool

[Caano Geel]

I've been meaning to post this article for the last few days, but yes it seems we indeed have a lot to learn